Data Sources and Methods for the Air Pollutant Emissions Indicators

3. Data

3.1 Data source

The Air Pollutant Emissions indicators used in the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators (CESI) program are based on Canada's Air Pollutant Emission Inventory (APEI) data. The APEI report includes emissions reported by facilities to the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI), as well as emissions estimated by Environment and Climate Change Canada using the latest estimation methods, published statistics or other sources of information such as surveys and reports. The APEI summaries and trends are compiled in collaboration with provincial, territorial and regional environmental agencies. For the interactive maps, emissions reported by facilities are directly retrieved from the NPRI database.

Canada also submits its emissions to the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme Centre on Emission Inventories and Projections pursuant to the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution and its associated protocols.

Data for the black carbon indicator come from Canada's Black Carbon Emission Inventory. As a member country of the Arctic Council's Task Force for Action on Black Carbon, Canada has committed to voluntarily submitting an inventory of its black carbon emissions to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe by February 2016. Black carbon estimates are published separately from the APEI.

3.2 Spatial coverage

The indicators are calculated at the national and provincial/territorial levels except for black carbon, which is only available at the national level. Air pollutant emissions are also available at the facility level in the CESI interactive maps, except for black carbon.

3.3 Temporal coverage

The latest year available for the Air Pollutant Emissions indicators is 2014. Past years (1990–2013) are also available. Emissions by province and territory are reported for the years 1990, 2000 and 2014. Black carbon emissions are only reported for 2014. For facility emissions, information on key air pollutants is available for 2002 to 2014. All emissions used for the Air Pollutant Emissions indicators are annual values.

3.4 Data completeness

The APEI report is compiled to provide the best information available on all significant sources of key air pollutants. As such, improvements to data completeness are made periodically as new emission estimation methodologies are adopted and additional information is made available. Historical emissions are also updated on the basis of these improvements.

3.5 Data timeliness

The data are current as of December 1, 2015 for the years 1990 to 2014. Emissions data are reported in Canada's APEI approximately one year after data collection, validation, calculation and interpretation have been completed. The CESI Air Pollutant Emissions indicators are reported following the release of the APEI.